Hello Happy Pitbulls

Ball Girl Goes Viral

This video has been flying around the web for a little bit now, and now that it's hit the Ogilvy 360 Degree Influence Site, I figured it was time for me to talk about it.

First of all, this was filmed in Fresno at a AAA baseball game featuring the Fresno Grizzlies and the Tacoma Rainiers.  How cool am I that I'm completely looped into the Pacific Coast League?  Of course, our Sacramento River Cats play these guys all the time.

Do I care whether this is a great viral video or whether it's on- or off-brand?  Not so much.  I just wanted to state that I'm still irritated about the person who yesterday sent me a 5MB .wav file and clogged up my email at work.  First of all, stop sending me crap at work.  We DO have a policy about that. It did however remind me I wanted to pop this on my blog.

In the meantime, I am working to find ways to incorporate elements of social media into the workplace. My team has a blog (which they sometimes need prodding to remember to post there rather than emailing to everyone).  I'm hoping some pilot efforts like this will help demonstrate the value of social media to team building, productivity, and information sharing.  Just wait until we get to social tagging.  Just downloaded Daniela Barbosa's new ebook The Taxonomy Folksonomy Cookbook.  In an organization full of internal jargon, acronyms, and internally focused intranet sites, this might be the answer to creating a more structured, user-centric world.

In the meantime: check out the ball girl!

Baseball season in full swing

Sacramento River Cats,
originally uploaded by marlinex.

We've hit almost the half-way mark of the River Cats baseball season and I've yet to really blog about the excitement of it all. We watched from the Cache Creek Casino suite on Saturday night, and this was the view of the Sacramento Skyline, which seems to be expanding at a furious rate. But there's more to tell...

It's always fun to look at baseball outfits.  Some are appropriate; some, not so much. Here's a picture of two lovely ladies who were doing taste tests for Miller (I shudder at the thought).  Girl on the right: cute shoes, perfect for baseball games. The girl on the left, not so much.  I tried hard to capture this for the blog, but this was the best thing I could do.  We're talking 5 inch stiletto heels, patent black, with a peep toe.  Now peep toes...aren't they supposed to be just that?  Peep, right?  This chick had major toe action hanging out the front of her shoes, practically dragging on the ground.  It's a baseball game! What's up with this style?

This is one of my favorite things to do. Maybe it's part of my strange shoe obsession, but there is a time and place for every shoe and this one missed the mark.  Just saying.

Sox Swept in Oakland, Without Me

The day tickets went on sale for the 2008 baseball season, I was online securing tickets for my dad and me to see the Red Sox in Oakland.  It's been a bit of a fuzzy ritual.  We've been twice now, but didn't go last year because I put work first, like an idiot.

I got tickets for today's game way back in February. That was before I knew I was going to have my ankle surgery.  I scheduled my surgery around this game so I could be sure I was able to go. As it turned out, my dad forgot about the game, booked a flight to see my brother and his family, and I ended  up selling the tickets.  I sold them to a Sox fan, and I'm feeling slightly guilty that the Sox lost.  In fact, the Red Sox lost all weekend.  Now I feel relieved I didn't drive all the way down on a holiday weekend to sit amongst the A's fans and watch the Red Sox lose.

It's probably just as well.  I spend a few hours wearing my brace and walking around the house (on crutches, but wearing a shoe!) and it wore me out.  I'm icing.  I think it would have been too much.

Attention Woodlanders: Red Sox anyone?

Back in February, on the very day the Red Sox tickets went on sale, I bought tickets for my dad and I to go down to Oakland on Sunday, May 23 to see the Sox play the Oakland A's.  Who would have thunk that I would have ankle surgery and be boot bound at the time of the game?  As it turns out, my dad is also heading up north to see my brother and his wife and child this weekend, and my other niece graduates from high school.  We have an action packed weekend planned.

So, all you Dustin Pedroia fans in Woodland -- anyone want some tix for the game on Sunday?  Email me if you are interested in some great seats and I'll give you the details.  I'd hate to see these tickets go unused!

My first outdoor adventure

Yesterday was a day full of adventure and excitement.  It started off at the dentist's office.  Okay, so maybe it wasn't THAT exciting, but it was an adventure nonetheless.  I went back to get a permanent crown to replace that tooth that broke 5 days before my ankle surgery.  Here I was thinking my filling fell out, to find that it was actually my tooth that broke.  Luckily, I was able to save the tooth and just get a nice, pretty crown.  Yes, it's still sensitive, but I can chew again.

The next part of my adventure was to go out to lunch with my dad.  Our pal Chris from Wilbraham & Monson Academy, where I went to 7th - 12th grade, was out in Redwood City visiting her family and she made the trek up to Woodland/Davis to take us out for lunch.  Remember, I haven't had much social interaction in a few weeks, and the weather was absolutely perfect yesterday!  I had such a good time getting out of the house, catching up with Chris and my dad, and having a change of scenery.

Next stop, the season opener for the Sacramento River Cats.  This sent me over the edge.  First of all, I still haven't received my temporary disabled placard from the DMV yet. This makes the trek from the parking lot to the stadium really long, even with my magic go-cart.  I've had that thing long enough that I think I'm going to blog a review of it and send a copy to the company.  There's so many enhancements that could be made to make for a more secure and comfortable experience for someone who is mobility impaired.  And, speaking of mobility impairments, I was bonding with all the wheelchair people last night who were admiring my ride.  It's always good to put yourself outside of your comfort zone to see what other people go through when navigating through crowds, hills, horribly maintained streets and sidewalks, intersections, parking structures, etc.


We only stayed through the 7th inning, and I tried to keep my leg elevated as much as I could while I was there, but by the time I got home, my foot was puffed up like a balloon.  And it hurt.  And all my muscles were sore from pushing that scooter up the hill.

But I have to say one thing.  It was about 80 degrees out at game time -- perfect baseball weather.  Shorts and T-shirts weather.  We were parked at our traditional seats at the Solon Club being waited on hand and foot by our bartender pals who have been there as long as we have.  We got to visit with our baseball pals that we see constantly from April through September, then rarely if ever through the off-season.  There's really just nothing like opening day with our baseball family.

So what's on tap for today.  The foot is back up on pillows and it's on ice.  I could barely sleep last night, so I'm probably going to need a nap too.  And some work.  Gonna mix some work in too, just to keep things moving.     

Go Mudcats Go Lugnuts

As a lifelong baseball fan, this really warmed my heart.  Courtesy of my Big Brother Brett, who has yet to get on Twitter and who is long overdue for a blog update! (And who needs to be blogging as he goes as an alternate for his district to the Washington State Democratic Convention!

Showers are the best thing in the world

I've never appreciated how wonderful a daily shower is until I got to the point where I couldn't take one unassisted.  Even with my two previous knee surgeries, I was always weight bearing so it was possible to take care of it all myself.

With this ankle surgery, I have to get Mike to help me get in and out of the shower.  Or at least I thought I did.  Today I got tired of waiting for him to help me get out, I figured out how to do it myself -- a trick involving the shower chair, the bathroom door and a non-slip slipper and my crutches.  Okay, maybe it wasn't the safest thing I could have done, but it did make me feel like a whole person to be able to do something myself.  If only our walk in shower wasn't completely torn up!  I wouldn't have to negotiate the tub.

So now that I'm clean, I have retreated to command central to watch the Giants sticking up Milwaukee.  This team should be playing better, because there's a lot of good team members there, but they are just not looking good this year.  So, while watching this crappy game, I am also following the Red Sox game on Twitter via @redsoxcast. I don't know who it is that does those feeds, but they are way more efficient that watching the game on MLB Gameday, mostly because I can multitask doing something silly like writing here and still get notified by updates through Twirl, my new most awesomest Twitter client.

Now, going back to showers, somone needs to give one to Fifi.  She was up on the ottoman last night climbing over my ankle and pillow stack trying to share some space with me, and as she went to sit down. Her butt rubbed up against my good leg, leaving a beautiful smear, illustrated here. While I was freaking out, yelling "it burns, it burns!!!" at the top of my lungs, and completely helpless because I couldn't get up and wipe it off myself, my husband was really looking out for me.  He started toward the living room, "This has to go on the blog!" He comes back a few minutes later with this camera and a flashlight, so he could get the lighting exactly right.  After some initial tests, he came up with that beauty. And poor Fifi must be suffering from old lady dog leaky anus.  Just in case,you want to see that too, we put a picture on my Flickr page.  Yeah, that's another sign of our superior maturity level.  You just have to get used to it.

In case you were wondering, my leg was scrubbed clean, disinfected, and anti-bacterialized, and then Zero gave me a circle-circle-dot-dot cootie shot. Ewwww.

Skanky dirty scumbag: Schilling on Canseco

Picked this one up from Surviving Grady, one of my favorite Red Sox-centric blogs.  So juicy (sorry) I had to share:

It's Baseball Season!

It's hard to believe baseball season is finally here!  It's been great to have baseball on TV at all hours, although I have yet to watch an entire game.  I have fallen asleep during at least 3 of them so far.  I'm still fairly early in my recovery process from my ankle surgery, so I know I'll have plenty of time to stay awake for more games over the next couple of weeks.

Ankle Update: Day 5

I went to the doctor this morning for my post surgery visit. I was a little nervous about getting out into the car, and although it took a lot out of me to get to the car, it went fairly smoothly.  Going down stairs is definitely easier than going up on crutches, but I'm getting better.

When we got to the clinic, I sent Mike to fetch a wheelchair while I tried to go up the sidewalk into the building.  Those crutches really are Hellsticks, to coin a phrase from my new internet friend Andrea.  I had the opportunity to chill in the waiting room to elevate my foot.  It definitely feels better when it's up.

The doctor's assistant wasted no time removing the dressing from my ankle.  As we saw yesterday, it was pretty swollen and yellow from the betadine, but overall, wasn't too bad.  Assistant Rachel said this was a big surgery, but it's nothing compared to ulcers or gangrene, so I have to consider myself lucky.

Dr. Starkweather came in an said my foot looked great for 5 days out.  My sutures weren't quite healed up, but he said it was obvious that I was really good about keeping it elevated.  I told him I was really scared on the crutches, so he asked me if I've been crawling around.  As if?  Honestly, I just haven't done anything other than go from bed to the bathroom.

Mike is challenging me to get moving more, and the doctor agreed with that.  I am going to look into getting a roll-a-bout thingy, which is like a scooter that I can rest my leg on and zip around.  So, the doctor wants me to get my foot flexed to 90 degrees.  Right now it's at 30, so I need to take the boot off a couple times during the day and work on stretching it.  He decided not to cast me until I'm at 90 degrees, since I'm managing okay in the boot.  My stitches will come out in a week, and I'm supposed to be able to flex to 90 degrees by then.  Still no weight bearing or resting on my foot, and I have to keep it elevated.

I'm all wrapped up in an ACE and back in my boot and chilling out with my dogs.  I'm watcing Barry Zito suck up his first appearance of the year.  When I see the 50th anniversary of the SF Giants advertisements, it's odd that Barry Bonds has been written write out of that legacy.  Does anyone notice that besides me?

Pitchers and Catchers: Baseball Feeds for Spring Training

My news feeds are jumping in my Google Reader under my Baseball category.  For those interested in following spring training news and the Red Sox in particular, here's a list of my favorite sites to follow.  You can get great quotes like: "Even though he's looking more like John Candy than John Candelaria..." referring to Curt Schilling (ouch!).

• Ballbug
• Call of the Green Monster (it's more of a spoof than anything else)
• Only Baseball Matters (mostly Giants-centric)
• Red Sox Stories from Boston.com (in-depth Sox coverage by the Boston Globe)
• I follow @TelegraphSox on Twitter (my new favorite way to get news in 140 characters or less!)
• Surviving Grady (ultra-funny fan site for the Sox)

Now that the weather is getting nicer, I start to need my fix of baseball news.  It's right around the corner!